


Oracles and Broken Things

by enthugger



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst, Barricade Day 2019, Canon Era, Hands, Hugs, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Stolen Moments, Unresolved Romantic Tension, hurt but not much comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 12:09:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19106818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthugger/pseuds/enthugger
Summary: The moment he hears Enjolras’s voice, Grantaire relaxes. It’s a reflex, like recoiling from the stench of blood, his body recognizes Enjolras’s nearness as something like necessity.Or: a series of connections, in which Grantaire breaks the rules of tragedy and Enjolras breaks Grantaire.





	Oracles and Broken Things

Grantaire thinks sometimes that he has spent far too much of his life believing tragedy has a purpose.

It was necessary sometimes, philosophers said, to balance the humours, harden the emotions against those undesirable things like too much softness or too much pain. And once it had washed over you and filled out the nothing of your soul, then, they said, you would be something like fixed. It was never too clear what was supposed to happen next. 

They were all fragments anyway, the things Grantaire had put his trust in as a boy, unfinished stories with uncertain endings, just as likely to promise comedy as death or reversal. Grantaire made it a point not to believe in much of anything, so he set them aside as what they were: stories. 

He didn’t trust stories. They were always too grand; they promised too much, wrote off the horrors of the world as less than he knew them first hand to be. But even Grantaire, who made a point to deny as many parts of the world as he came across, could not deny Enjolras. From the moment that Grantaire laid eyes on him, from the moment that he first shook his hand, felt Enjolras’s slender fingers brush the inside of his wrist as they broke apart. He knew something of affect then, pierced by the depths of Enjolras’s eyes before he looked away from their scrutiny forever. 

Grantaire thinks now that this is what he always seems to be doing around Enjolras: looking away. Because if he doesn’t see Enjolras, doesn’t see him fighting for a future that can’t possibly exist, with his head held high, and curve of his neck delicate, like marble on the verge of cracking, too valuable to last through the ruins of time without being plundered. Grantaire thinks that maybe, if he hides the hints of Enjolras’s downfall from view, then he will never see them happen. 

He finds equilibrium in a kind of deliberate not-watching, disrupted only by the times he is watched himself, with Enjolras’s eyes on the back of his head, burning with an intensity like the sun itself, following his every move. 

He tries. He tries hard, and some days, he manages to forget.

-

The first time he breaks his rule, it’s an accident. 

He meets Enjolras’s eyes across a room crowded with men, men who only moments before were chatting in the comfortable lull of post-work companionship. They’re all used to this by now, blending into scenes and laughing with the carelessness of students. There’s a joke there somewhere about what they are and what they’re not. 

Grantaire is fairly certain that he falls all too heavily on the side of what they’re not. 

It’s in that moment that it happens, when the talking stops and someone slams a hand down on a table and Grantaire looks up from a game of dominoes that he hasn’t quite focused on all night. It’s then that he looks at Enjolras, catches his gaze in an unexpected moment of softness as silence sweeps the room. He can feel the tension, so thick he could cut it with a knife or bruise his hands pushing against it or any number of age-old cliches that make the orator in him cringe with shame. But a part of him knows that it’s more than tension, there’s a hint beneath it of the kind of warning signs that Grantaire often buries himself in bottles to escape. 

And that fear, more than anything, is what has made him break his rule. Grantaire shakes his head slightly, his eyes still locked with Enjolras’s dark ones, wondering what sort of strangeness has brought on this connection, knowing he will later convince himself that he’s made it up. 

Enjolras stares at him for a moment longer, a small frown appearing between his eyebrows before he looks away, back towards the man in front of him. There’s only a second left before the tension snaps and Grantaire uses it to take a drink.

Then all hell breaks loose. 

The man grabs Enjolras by the collar and slams him backwards over the table. Someone is shouting to him, barely audible over the chaos of voices, and Grantaire has already stopped listening. He knocks his chair over as he jumps to his feet, the only thought in his mind the overwhelming need to reach Enjolras, to put himself between Enjolras and danger by any means possible. But the moment he turns, a well-placed elbow connects hard with the side of the face and Grantaire does what he always does best and swings back. 

From there, it goes much the way that all bar fights go, with some well-timed smooth talking from both sides and finally, the decision to let their group slip away out a back entrance. In the fray he’s lost sight of Enjolras, and he feels prickles of anxiety at the back of his neck as he stumbles out into the street, the cool evening air stinging the fresh cuts on his face. He’s more than ready to run back in inside to assure himself of Enjolras’s safety when a small hand grips his elbow. 

He’s pushed backwards until he can lean against a nearby wall. Joly is fussing over him, as he always does, murmuring a quiet stream of words that Grantaire only half absorbs. 

“Riot,” Joly says. 

“It’s not a riot,” Grantaire responds, distracted. Joly’s fingers are gentle as he inspects the bruising on the side of Grantaire’s eye. “Close enough,” Grantaire thinks he might say, or maybe he doesn’t say because things are fuzzy and Joly’s hands are warm against his shoulders and he needs to see Enjolras. 

He needs to make sure he’s ok, yes, but a part of him is desperate to know if the connection of that small moment was real. It’s a feeling Grantaire never dreamed he would be present enough to notice: attention, recognition from the only person he felt the urge to recognize himself. A godlike, Enjolras-exclusive feeling that he knows wholeheartedly he doesn’t deserve. 

“Alright, let’s get you home,” Joly is saying somewhere above him, and Grantaire is about to protest that he can’t leave yet. Not now, not when the memory of Enjolras’s gentle frown is still burned fresh into his memory like a nightmare, lingering and unsteady. 

“Wait.” 

The moment he hears Enjolras’s voice, Grantaire relaxes. It’s a reflex, like recoiling from the stench of blood, his body recognizes Enjolras’s nearness as something like necessity. Grantaire blinks his eyes open and finds that Enjolras is much closer than he expects. He’s knelt down in front of him with concern in his eyes and that same small frown on his forehead, like he’s confused by Grantaire in a way that he’s just on the verge of puzzling out. 

“There you are,” Grantaire murmurs, somewhat nonsensically, overwhelmed by relief, as if the universe itself is showing its gratitude that Enjolras is still alive. 

For a moment, the Enjolras’s eyes crinkle into what could almost be a smile and he stands, moves on to deal with any number of more important things before Grantaire is ready to let him go. 

-

The next time it’s an accident. 

He runs into Enjolras in the street, a little under a week after the failed collusion of the last time, and a part of him wants to joke that it’s too late of an hour for him to be out on his own like this, but Enjolras never takes too kindly to his suggestions. Grantaire often finds that whenever he tries to warn Enjolras of anything, it always seems to come out wrong. 

Despite the lateness of the hour, Enjolras is as safe as anyone with his reputation could be, calm and still amongst the late night bustle of the city, a solid point in a world full of moving parts. Sometimes, Grantaire thinks that Enjolras is the only thing in the world that doesn’t make him seasick. 

They stop across from each other, on opposite sides of the street, mirror images in a way that Grantaire’s brain isn’t smart enough or sober enough to have staged intentionally. There’s a faint flush across Enjolras’s cheeks, bruising on his jaw starting to turn a painful looking shade of green and Grantaire finds himself transfixed by the marks. For a moment, he thinks of fading light, thinks of sunset. 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says simply. He moves first, closes the distance between them and meets Grantaire on his side of the street. Grantaire wonders why it always feels like it is Enjolras who holds out the olive branch to him. Again, he thinks, he has done nothing in his life to deserve this. 

“Good evening, Enjolras.” Grantaire’s voice sounds too loud and too rough, echoing around the quiet street around them. “Or should I say good morning?” 

“Is it morning?” Enjolras seems suddenly small in the face of the imposition of something as impossibly large as time itself. Grantaire knows the feeling well and he almost smiles, despite himself. 

“As close to morning as I ever make it a point to see,” he responds, immediately regretting his flippant tone when Enjolras frowns. He expects Enjolras to brush him off, turn around, be on his way, and forget all about the minor annoyance on his walk home. 

“I’m glad I ran into you,” Enjolras says instead, his frown giving way to an expression that would be serious if it wasn’t softened at the edges by the too late, too early hours of liminality.

“I never thought I’d hear that sentiment from you.” Grantaire rubs the back of his neck, confused by an unfamiliar twinge of hopefulness. Hope isn’t an emotion that sits well with him, like sincerity: there’s always been too much room in it for failure. 

Enjolras shakes his head. “I wanted to talk to you about what happened the other night,” he says. Grantaire blinks, realizes he’s staring at the bruise again, as usual, his thoughts searching for a weak spot out of fear that he’ll soon need to defend himself. And of course, it’s also an excuse to study the contrast of the sharpness of Enjolras’s jaw against the elegant curve of his neck, a dichotomy that Grantaire thinks should be the envy of sculptors everywhere. 

“Are you alright?” He asks finally, after slightly too long of a pause, motioning towards Enjolras’s cheek with his hand. 

“I’m fine,” Enjolras moves his head back slightly in what Grantaire can’t help but assume is an attempt to stay out of reach of his touch, and he feels that rejection harder than any punch to the gut. He starts with surprise when Enjolras takes his outstretched hand in a sort of handshake instead, turning it over to study the half-healed scabs on Grantaire’s knuckles. 

When he speaks, his expression is strangely thoughtful. “You knew it was coming.” It’s a statement, not a question and Grantaire shrugs, lost under Enjolras’s gentle scrutiny in a way he’s never felt among the streets of Paris. He’s not sure how to react to this new sensation, Enjolras’s presence, his fingers soft on the broken skin of the back of Grantaire’s hand with a kind of gentleness that Grantaire hasn’t seen from him before and doesn’t count himself lucky enough to ever see again. 

Needless to say, he’s distracted: an unhelpful predicament when, for the first time he can remember, Enjolras is asking for his help. 

“Well, you see,” he starts. “I am nothing if not a devotee of Apollo. I sacrifice daily and spare him every one of my waking thoughts. And his oracle often blesses me with what I might see as more of a curse than a foresight-” 

“Grantaire.” Enjolras cuts him off, his voice carrying an edge of annoyance. “How did you know?” Grantaire looks down, away from the piercing stillness of Enjolras’s eyes, the look he remembers from across the cafe the other night, a look that makes every one of his instincts scream danger. 

“It’s just how these things go,” he says, finally. “Sometimes, people like them, they’ll say they’re with you, but they’re cowards. They care more about having a roof over their head then they do about the potential for freedom. And who could blame them? To people who’ve lived without a roof before, it’s a luxury they’re never quite ready to let go of. And others, well, they’re just cowards.” 

Enjolras studies him. The words he hasn’t said hang heavy and unspoken between them: cowards, people like Grantaire. 

“But you don’t need me to tell you this,” Grantaire backtracks, worried that he’s overstepped and shown too much of himself. “You have others to get you in with those crowds, Bahorel and Feuilly. And even Courfeyrac, as flamboyant as he is. I have no doubt that he could endear himself to almost anyone.” 

“That’s not what I mean,” Enjolras says. “You knew something was wrong before anyone else there. The way you looked at me, it was as if you could sense what was about to happen.” 

Grantaire inexplicably feels like he’s been slapped, pulls his hand out of Enjolras’s to run it through his hair. “So, what, you want my fighting experience? You want to know if I have a second sense that tells me when I’m about to be punched in the face? It’s called paranoia, Enjolras, fear. Cowardice if you’re feeling particularly unkind.” 

Enjolras blinks and instead of responding with anger or annoyance, as Grantaire expects, he reaches out to touch his arm. It’s the second time Enjolras has ever intentionally touched him, save the first time they ever shook hands, the second time that night. 

“You’re not a coward. I saw you throw yourself into the fray as much as anyone else there.” Enjolras sighs, takes a step back. “Why do you say these things about yourself? It’s as if you want me to see you for less than you are.” 

Grantaire suddenly doesn’t think he can stand it any longer, the softness, the strangling sort of intimacy that he’s learning always seems to come with Enjolras’s proximity. 

“It’s late,” He says, shortly, his voice coming out hoarser than he intends. “You should get home, or, wherever it is that you’re going.” It seems he’s succeeded at pushing Enjolras out of that space of sincerity because he doesn’t try to touch Grantaire again or stop him from leaving. He dips his head in a mocking sort of bow, ushers Enjolras back on his way. 

“Please do let me know if you have any further need for my powers of observation, as you put it,” Grantaire calls out to the back of Enjolras’s head. “If you need me to take any more punches for you, I am always at your service.” 

“You always mock me,” he says as Grantaire turns to go, softly, so softly that Grantaire isn’t sure the words are meant for anyone other than Enjolras himself. But when he looks back over his shoulder, Enjolras simply lifts a hand in farewell and turns on his heel. 

It’s too late for this, Grantaire thinks. Too late and too early, all at once. 

-

He doesn’t expect there to be a next time. 

He’s shown his true colors in a way that he’s not sure Enjolras can ever forgive him for and it’s not the specifics so much that as the way he can feel Enjolras’s eyes bore into him every time he steps into a meeting, flashing with an anger that he knows he more than deserves. It’s the memory of Enjolras’s hands around his own, long fingers and soft palms against his rough ones, scrutiny giving way to a sincerity that has haunted both his sleep and his wakefulness for weeks. 

He’s a coward, he knows. He doesn’t belong in this kind of story. Odysseus would have thrown him overboard long ago; he would have perished on the voyage to Troy before he even got to storm the gates and there is no Achilles, waiting, to keep him safe. 

Grantaire is exhausted by himself sometimes. 

So, as he often does, he turns to wine and when that fails, to something stronger, anything to drown out the inside of his own head. Because that’s what it was at the cafe that day, a wave of panic so strong it felt like a warning. The closer he comes to advancing the tragedy, slowly ticking towards its ending around them, the louder the warning gets, a kind of scream that’s almost unbearable. 

Grantaire cannot in good faith, assuming he has anything left resembling faith, participate in anything that would advance the clock on Enjolras’s downfall any further. 

He doesn’t expect there to be a next time, now that his wounds have faded to scars: thin stripes of white across his knuckles, the faded red patch of a bruise around his eye. So, of course, he’s surprised to find Enjolras at his door, looking youthful and tired and chewing on one fingernail, staring at Grantaire with an expression that seems caught in a private state of confusion. And Grantaire, a few too many drinks in and closer to the edge of emotion than he cares to admit, can think of nothing else to do than fall back on politeness. 

“Enjolras,” he says, softly, unsteadily, as if he’s been expecting him. “Come in.” 

Enjolras, to his credit, nods along, steps over Grantaire’s threshold and stands, just inside the doorway. For a moment they simply look at each other; they seem to do a lot of looking these days. Grantaire supposes it’s better than yelling. 

“Do you always make a point of wandering the streets at night?” Grantaire asks finally. He doesn’t close the door yet, knows it will require reaching into Enjolras’s space and breaching the careful wall of distance they’ve built between them. He’s not sure he’s ready for what will happen when it comes down. 

“I think I’m lost,” Enjolras says. His voice is small, and up close he looks worse than Grantaire has ever seen him. There are bags under his eyes, pieces of hair falling from the tie at the base of his neck. Grantaire is certain that if he could grow a beard, he would be unshaven. 

“You? Lost? In the very city you’d give your life to change? That’s a level of hubris to which even I could not aspire.” 

“That’s not what I mean.” Enjolras sounds tired, exasperation ghosting around his words. “If you’re going to be like this, I shouldn’t have come. I don’t know what I expected.” He’s rambling, Grantaire realizes, or he figures that this is what Enjolras’s version of rambling might look like. 

It snaps Grantaire into action. He reaches out across that gulf of space between them to push against Enjolras’s shoulder and it doesn’t seem to tip the scale too much. Enjolras takes a step to the side, allowing Grantaire to pull the door shut behind him. 

For a moment, they simply look at each other. 

“I know the kind of lost you mean,” Grantaire admits. And he does, he’s spent every day of his waking life running from the feeling, hiding in the bottom of a glass or in the warmth of his friends’ comfort or, sometimes, in the blank expanse of a canvas, anything to get him out of its grasping tendrils. But he doesn’t know why it is him Enjolras has come to for comfort; he’s never in his life had his feet fully underneath him, is always halfway out into the depths of existentialism.“Enjolras, why did you come here?” 

Enjolras almost seems to deflate. “Because you understand. I know that you do.” 

Grantaire walks back across the room, eyes the open bottle on the table, and wonders if Enjolras has noticed. 

“I can’t go to the rest of them,” Enjolras continues. He’s still standing in the doorway, seems hesitant to move. “I can’t tell them that I understand the way things might go. They’re smart. I’m sure they’ve seen the signs too. Combeferre is a genius and Jehan reads more than anyone. But, you’re the only one who really knows, aren’t you?” 

Grantaire tips the bottle back, throws caution to the wind in more ways than one. It’s a something stronger kind of night, and it burns his throat on the way down before he holds out it out towards Enjolras, who narrows his eyes and shakes his head at the invitation. Grantaire shrugs. 

“I’m not trying to flatter you,” he says finally, “but if anyone knew the inner workings of fate, it would be you, an Apollo. Only the sun is more blinding than the future you claim to see.” He can’t possibly explain to Enjolras how truly he knows, deep down in a part of him he takes great care never to examine too closely, that this will all end in tragedy. 

Enjolras is frowning now. He looks closer to falling apart than Grantaire has ever seen him and a part of Grantaire can’t help but feel like he’s failed. It’s his unwritten job to keep this knowledge from Enjolras, to make sure he never has to worry himself with the things that keep Grantaire up at night. 

“I’m sorry.” Granatire’s not quite sure which of his vast number of defects it is that he’s apologizing for, but he feels the need to nonetheless. He motions to the one comfortable chair in the room, usually full of books or bottles or discarded clothes, but tonight Grantaire has cleared it for his own pity session, had been slumped it it himself before Enjolras arrived, all too ready never to leave it again as he drank himself into oblivion. “Enjolras, sit down,” Grantaire instructs, half out of decency, and half because Enjolras looks ready to fall asleep on his feet if he stays standing any longer. 

Enjolras starts at being addressed by name, but follows the request willingly. The knot of worry in Grantaire’s chest gets bigger. 

“How do you stand it?” Enjolras asks, tips his head against the side of the chair. He’s taken his hair down, and the loose strands of it that fall around his shoulders make him look somehow younger. He has a boldness to him that doesn’t belong in the dim griminess of Grantaire’s rooms. He belongs in a world with laughter and idealism, surrounded people who bask in his glow. He deserves people who kindle his fire, not the ones who extinguish it. 

At a loss for what else to do, Grantaire pushes himself up from his prone position half-leaning against the table and approaches Enjolras with all the caution he might afford a wild animal, or a wild god lost in the mortal realms. He comes to stand before the chair, leans over it and places a hand on one of the armrests. 

“Look at me, Enjolras. I can hardly stand it at all.” 

Enjolras looks up at him then, his eyes tired. “But you’re here, aren’t you? You come back to us even when, as you say, you don’t believe. I haven’t made it easy for you to be a part of this, Grantaire, and I’m sorry.” Enjolras’s gaze slips downwards; he bites his lip. 

Before he can think too hard about it, Grantaire reaches out and sets his free hand on Enjolras’s shoulder. Were he anyone else, Grantaire would wonder if Enjolras was drunk, would assume his senses had been addled in some way, because instead of pulling back from his touch, like he expects him to, Enjolras leans forward until his forehead rests against Grantaire’s chest. Granatire hopes he can’t hear the way his heart is pounding, or smell the alcohol on his breath, or any number of things that he’s always assumed Enjolras hates about him. 

But Enjolras merely sits there, his back a soft curve as he leans into Grantaire’s space, and after a moment, Granatire brings a hand up to cup the back of his head. He’s shaking: from wine, he assumes, or maybe from fear. 

“Oh, my chief,” Grantaire murmurs. The words sit heavy and wrong on the back of his tongue. He feels the silken strands of Enjolras’s hair beneath his fingers. “Passion is its own brand of melancholy.” 

Enjolras moves his head very slightly to the side, takes an unsteady breath, then another. Grantaire feels his breathing against his arm, cards his fingers slowly through Enjolras’s hair. He knows that the moment Enjolras leaves he will give into his own melancholy, that the thin strands of composure keeping him steady can only last for so long. 

“Thank you,” Enjolras says after a moment, a soft warmth against Grantaire’s forearm. And then he pulls away, runs a long-fingered hand through his hair, not quite meeting Grantaire’s eyes. There’s a finality to it, the way cynicism gives way to softness. He can tell that Enjolras can sense it too, that this may be the last of their goodbyes. 

The next morning, when Grantaire wakes, fully clothed, his neck stiff from an uncomfortable night curled in his armchair instead of his bed, he can almost convince himself that it was a dream: Enjolras, standing in his doorway, his hair a golden halo in the darkness. He’d looked down at Grantaire and hesitantly, like he was afraid Grantaire might spook, leaned over and kissed him, chaste and gentle, on the side of his head, directly over the spot where his bruises had healed. 

Grantaire lifts a hand now, covers the place with already-shaking fingers. He decides to hope, for the first time in a long time, that it could have been real. 

-

The last time, Grantaire thinks that this must be how the furies plagued men. Not with claws in soft flesh or pools of blood at their feet, but with scars. Scars and the softness of fingers brushing against them, clinging tightly to his own. And a shared look, gentle and knowing, like he was certain he’d never see from those eyes again. 

And finally, with something like a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> it's barricade day, i forced myself to write something, i don't even know anymore. hmu on [tumblr](https://williamvapespeare.tumblr.com/) to talk about these sad boys!


End file.
